By Poornima Vijayashanker You’ve probably noticed that for the past few months I’ve been casually talking about my upcoming book. Well I’m excited to …
By Poornima Vijayashanker
You’ve probably noticed that for the past few months I’ve been casually talking about my upcoming book. Well I’m excited to finally announce that I’ll be launching in 2 weeks, on September 30th!
The book is called How to Transform Your Ideas into Software Products. It captures my 10+ years of experience building software products and tech companies in Silicon Valley, along with interviews and case studies from other entrepreneurs, engineers, and employees who have done the same.
It’s a step-by-step guide for those who want to bring a their passion projects or any ideas to life!
But the goal of today’s post isn’t to share the details of the book. If you are interested in those sign up here to learn more.
The goal of today’s post is to share all the little papercuts (pun intended) that I experienced while writing this book, how I overcame them, and to hopefully inspire you to think about capturing your expertise and sharing it with the world.
Force flow.
At the end of May I ran a pre-order campaign to make sure there was interest in the book, and while I was excited by the results I realized that I had just given myself a deadline: I had 4-months to produce a book for readers!
I tried to write between 9am and 5pm, but it was nearly impossible to find a flow in the midst of a myriad of interruptions.
I learned to force myself into a state of flow by waking up at 5am, picking a topic, and writing until 8am. I could work uninterrupted.
The rough drafts I produced were really rough, I realized that I was slowly making progress. While I couldn’t wake up at 5am everyday, I was able to commit and be effective Monday through Wednesday. 3 days a week is better than 0!
Getting passed over by publishers.
When I asked people whether I should approach a publisher or self-publish the overwhelming consensus was that a publisher would not really help in the long run. Most writers told me that they used their $20K advance for promoting the book. While others mentioned that the didn’t even receive one!
There were a couple folks who said that for my first book I should still partner with a publisher to leverage any promotional channels they had, not to mention help offset the printing costs.
I reached out and asked for introductions to publishers. A couple of the introductions seemed like they were interested. They wanted me to submit a proposal, so I diligently produced one, and even recruited my writer friends to review it.
After submitting the proposal I notified the publishers, and waited to hear back.
After a couple weeks I pinged them, and didn’t receive a response.
I figured the summer holidays were starting to roll around, so I gave them additional time.
Finally, I decided that if I didn’t hear back from them by July 31st I’d proceed to publish on my own.
On July 31st I didn’t hear from anyone.
I was disappointed, but I figured it was for the best.
I already had folks who had pre-ordered copies of my book in May, and I had told them it was going to be out in September, so I just forged ahead.
You write good, but your grammar is bad.
As I was writing the book and getting feedback, people kept giving me the same feedback: “You write well, but there are a lot of typos and grammatical errors in your writing.”
I was really worried. I wanted to deliver a book that was polished.
While I could easily spot typos, I couldn’t distance myself from my writing enough to tell if what I was saying was making sense. I needed an outsider’s perspective, and I needed to find that person fast!
I spent about a month searching for an editor. I kept coming across people that were great at just line editing, but because the book was focused on delivering a process, I needed someone to challenge me on the structure and content. Eventually I met people who understood the topic, but wouldn’t be available until the fall (facepalm).
Then one fateful day I was chatting with my friend Bernadette, and telling her how I needed an editor. She introduced me to her friend Nathalie, who became more than just my editor, she became a partner who could keep pace with me!
The price of print.
My initial goal was to produce an e-book, see how sales did, and then do a print version. I was just going to use a simple template to product the e-book. Easy peezy!
But a couple of my friends and readers convinced me that I should really produce a print version of the book, and have some copies to giveaway.
I researched printers. I grew increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of the print from online vendors I came across. Finally, I found a great local printer, and realized that it was going to cost me about $10/book for a softcover if I printed 300+ copies. So it was going to cost me more like $3K.
Actually it was going to cost me way more than that because I needed to hire a designer to layout the book and design the cover! Make that $5K.
I thought about doing a Kickstarter campaign, but I’d needed more time to produce a video and organize a campaign. Time I didn’t have because I had a business to run and a book to write.
I was wracking my brain trying to figure out how to make print happen, and then came up with a hypothesis that some companies might be willing sponsor the print version. So my team and I set out to ping sponsors. It took us about a month to reach out to a number of companies, but we managed to pin down five sponsors, who were kind enough to help make print a reality!
Just when you think you’re done.
My plan was to finish writing the book on July 31st, send it out for peer review, and then relax for most of August.
But when you’re self-publishing you also have to promote the book! For the first two weeks of August while the book was out for review, I started lining up speaking engagements, writing promotional copy, creating a landing pages, and reaching out to press.
And then you’re out cold.
Literally. Yes I’ve pushed myself a little too hard these past couple of weeks. Between running my business and preparing for the launch I managed to catch a cold this past weekend. Instead of working on promotional campaigns I laid in bed resting.
But it’s totally worth it!
Despite all the little papercuts I didn’t bat an eyelash, because I really really wanted to bring my passion project to life.
When the printer asked if I wanted to be shipped a proof, I told them I couldn’t wait another day to receive it by mail. I spent an hour driving from Palo Alto to Berkeley to see the proof.
I was really eager to get my hands on it!
As I was driving, I did my best to keep to the speed limit, but I just couldn’t help feeling excitement and a whole lotta anticipation.
Once I got there, I met up with a woman named Erika, who handed me a cardboard envelope that contained my book in it.
As I held it my hands I let out a huge sigh of relief, and knew that everything had finally come together!
I’m really proud of this first product for Femgineer. All the little papercuts have been worth it, and I know I’ll be even more excited once it’s in the hands of readers!
Now I want to know what was the last project that you’re really proud of, and what did you have to go through in order to bring it to reality? Let me know in the comments below!
